"Egan is determined to make sense of everything - to understand the whole world as an intelligible, rational, material (and finally manipulable) realm - even if it means abandoning comfortable and comforting illusions. This is fundamental to the whole project of SF and it's why Egan's Best - and his Rest - is worth any number of looks. -Locus What happens when your digital self overpowers your physical self? A life in Permutation City is unlike any life to which you're accustomed. You have Eternal Life, the power to live forever. Immortality is a real thing, just not the thing you'd expect. Life is just electronic code. You have been digitized, scanned, and downloaded into a virtual reality program. A Copy of a Copy. For Paul Durham, he keeps making Copies of himself, but the issue is that his Copies keep changing their minds and shutting themselves down. You also have Maria Deluca, who is nothing but an Autoverse addict. She spends every waking minute with the cellular automaton known as the Autoverse, a world that lives by the mathematical "laws of physics." Paul makes Maria an offer to design and drop a seed into the Autoverse that will allow her to indulge in her obsession. There is, however, one catch: you can no longer terminate, bail out, and remove yourself. You will never be your normal flesh-and-blood life again. The question then becomes: Is this what she really wants? Is this what we really want? From the brilliant mind of Greg Egan, Permutation City, first published in 1994, comes a world of wonder that makes you ask if you are you, or is the Copy of you the real you? Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

A chilling piece of Russian dystopian fiction and the basis of three bestselling computer games Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light, and Metro: Exodus The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind. But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend. More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness. The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. Man's time is over. A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on earth. They live in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters - or the simple need to repulse an enemy incursion. It is a world without a tomorrow, with no room for dreams, plans, hopes. Feelings have given way to instinct - the most important of which is survival. Survival at any price. VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line. It was one of the Metro's best stations and still remains secure. But now a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro, to the legendary Polis, to alert everyone to the awful danger and to get help. He holds the future of his native station in his hands, the whole Metro - and maybe the whole of humanity. Readers are hooked on Metro 2033: 'The Russians have a skill in writing apocalyptic, nightmarish stories . . . Claustrophobic, dark cul-de-sacs of danger and terror, Metro 2033 is a world of uncertainties and fear . . . I never realised that you can read a book through your fingers as you wait for the horrors to leap out from the ruins and the dark' Goodreads reviewer, 'Frankly it is the best post-apocalyptic sci-fi I have ever read . . . the story operates on a number of different levels, is tightly plotted, very descriptive and real . . . The ending is a twist and a shocker that left me feeling empty and hollow for a few days afterwards' Goodreads reviewer, 'Those Russians know how to write dystopian, post-apocalyptic, creepy horror . . . Life in the metro is brutal, raw, dirty, dangerous, but also deeply human . . . a fantastic, immersive read' Goodreads reviewer, 'The creatures, the world, the Metro, the people are all very well though out and built . . . The ending hit me out of nowhere, completely unexpected on my part. Just. What a twist' Goodreads reviewer,

'A contemporary masterpiece' Guardian THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE EXTRAORDINARY SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND (EX MACHINA) AND STARRING NATALIE PORTMAN AND OSCAR ISAAC For thirty years, Area X has remained mysterious and remote behind its intangible border - an environmental disaster zone, though to all appearances an abundant wilderness. The Southern Reach, a secretive government agency, has sent eleven expeditions to investigate Area X. One has ended in mass suicide, another in a hail of gunfire, the eleventh in a fatal cancer epidemic. Now four women embark on the twelfth expedition into the unknown.

A governmental power known as Arahma keeps a tight rein over the planet Ryocelin. Horrific news surfaces from a small base south-west of the Arahmian city, forcing Lanni, a lowly soldier, to flee in panic. His flight soon brings him to the southern city called Gexa, the last remaining city not yet under Arahma's jurisdiction. Here Lanni meets Kor, the illusive leader of Gexa's rebel faction. An iron-willed determined man, he holds a careful suspicion of Lanni's sudden presence. Lanni and Kor are bound in a quest to find Cyek, a mysterious soldier who once fought for Arahma. He is in search of himself to fill the gaps in his memory. Kor offers a handsome proposal to aid Cyek in his search if he in turn helps them. But all is not so simple for Cyek...The exciting journey that unravels leads Lanni and Kor to many others who become tied to a quest that will bring them all face to face with fear, tragedy and bloodshed.

The first issue of the classic pulp magazine Astounding Stories of Super-Science (later renamed Astounding Science Fiction, and currently being published as Analog Science Fiction) presents a mix of science fiction adventure stories by top writers of the day. Included are "Phantoms of Reality," by Ray Cummings; "The Beetle Horde," by Victor Rousseau; "Tank," by Murray Leinster; "The Cave of Horror," by Captain S.P. Meek; and many others.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same ambition in each other. A shared interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl with a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the arch-nemeses have set a course for revenge but who will be left alive at the end?

The year is 2349. Pirate Ben Long and crew face trouble. Chased by the Space Navy, they fall through a black hole. Their ship Lion survives, piloted by Sugar, Ben's android, but in a new dimension adventures crowd them. They rescue Terri, an alien warrior in an escape pod and go to her planet Xenaria. Bugs have taken control of it. With Terri driven by revenge, she, Ben, Sugar and Ahmad, Lion's First Lieutenant, land to fight. Captured by bugs, they escape, steal an enemy ship and head back to Lion only to find her hijacked. When they recover the ship, Sugar and Terri duel over Ben. Then it's on to a meeting with bugs - and an unforeseeable proposal. More surprises follow -

Five murders on an untamed world. Two fugitives on the run. The hunt is on. When celebrated Omicron detective Ferrix Vaughn is called in to investigate a deadly breach on Hesperidia, a protected planet full of indigenous wildlife, he doesn't know what to expect. The place used to be a tourist attraction, but the safari tours were discontinued long ago due to rampant poaching. Only a handful of researchers live there now, including Jan Corbija, the disfigured young woman who reported the breach. The deeper Vaughn digs, the more the evidence seems to point to a recent raid on a biotech facility in a nearby system. Whatever was stolen from there, it's attracted the attention of major political players in a time of war across the colonies. Vaughn suspects the secret is on Hesperidia, in the hands of the two fugitives who fled the murder scene. If he wants to get to them first, he's going to need Jan's help. Her Alien Safari tour will have to reopen for this final excursion. But to survive it, they'll both need to face their demons, for a predator far deadlier than man roams the wilds of Hesperidia. And this is its killing season. This way for the ride of your life.

Set in the early 22nd century, MK121 is a tale of political intrigue, corruption, human relationships and action of a kind usually reserved for the realms of science fantasy, but set against a believable background based on past, current and potential future developments. Drake Featherstone is the captain of a space cruiser, the MK121, which is part of the Earth's protection arm, Space Force. Tasked with what initially appears to be a rescue of personnel from an Earth outpost, he and his crew soon discover that all is not what they expected. Meantime, the bulk of the Space Force fleet has been despatched to reclaim an Earth protectorate planet from an aggressive alien empire leaving Earth defenceless and potentially at the mercy of politically motivated forces. Interlaced in the story is the relationship between Featherstone and his first officer, Rachenda Lindberg. Having rescued the beleaguered personnel from the damaged outpost, matters twist and turn until the full truth of why the mission was necessary emerges and the consequences of the despatch of the fleet become obvious. The climax to the story is both dramatic and unexpected.

Mr Weetman makes cereal, and lots of it. He likes to make money, and pots of it! During one memorable trip home, his private plane has a terrifying encounter with a UFO. Upon landing, Mr Weetman finds more than he bargained for, as he discovers a number of unexplained items in his suitcase. He decides to hide them in cereal boxes for his next big promotion. They appear to be robots, but are they really toys? William is desperate to get his hands on one, but so is every other school child in the country. Can he find one in time, before everyone realises that they are actually extra-terrestrials? Discover what happens on William's thrilling adventure...it's out of this world!